In news:1D556799-3C0E-4AC6-BA4A-BCF30383CD5E@microsoft.com,
Steven Sinclair <StevenSinclair@discussions.microsoft.com> hunted and
pecked:
> Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting from a floppy when
> starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?
>
> Thanx.

Guest

Guest

Steven Sinclair wrote:
> Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting from a floppy when
> starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?
>
> Thanx.

No, there's no way to reboot a WinXP PC into Real Mode DOS unless
you've set up a dual-boot system. The WinNT family of 32-bit graphical
operating systems, of which WinXP is the latest generation, has never
used, included, or "ridden upon" MS-DOS.

Guest

Guest

Wouldn't 2003 Server be the latest in the NT line, as it is
6.0 as opposed to XPs 5.1?

"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
news:uyRxZGfmFHA.3448@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
: Steven Sinclair wrote:
: > Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting
from a floppy when
: > starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?
: >
: > Thanx.
:
:
: No, there's no way to reboot a WinXP PC into Real Mode DOS
unless
: you've set up a dual-boot system. The WinNT family of
32-bit graphical
: operating systems, of which WinXP is the latest
generation, has never
: used, included, or "ridden upon" MS-DOS.
:
: --
:
: Bruce Chambers
:
: Help us help you:
: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
:
: You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever
count on having
: both at once. - RAH

> Forgot to mention I have no access to a floppy drive on this
> notebook
> computer.
>
> So, how would I accomplish a "fresh" OS install, without a
> floppy if
> there's no way to boot to DOS on this machine?

You don't need, and shouldn't use, a floppy even if you had a
floppy drive.

Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if
necessary to accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean
installation (delete the existing partition by pressing "D" when
prompted, then create a new one).
You can find detailed instructions here: http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

However why do you want to reformat and reinstall? In my view,
it's usually a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never
be necessary to reinstall Windows (XP or any other version). I've
run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows
2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of time before the next
version came out, and each on two machines here. I never
reinstalled any of them, and I have never had anything more than
an occasional minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to
almost any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is
"reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them.
It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works, and it
doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a skill that
most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You
have to restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all
your programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and
application updates,you have to locate and install all the needed
drivers for your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all
your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome,
you may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation codes?
Do you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember all the
customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make
everything work the way you like?

Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and
far between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person
have failed.

If you have problems, post them here; it's likely that someone
can help you and a reinstallation won't be required.

Guest

Guest

Steven Sinclair wrote:
> Ooops...
>
> Forgot to mention I have no access to a floppy drive on this notebook
> computer.
>
> 8^)>
>
> So, how would I accomplish a "fresh" OS install, without a floppy if there's
> no way to boot to DOS on this machine?
>
> Thanx.

A boot diskette is a thing of the past, as all legitimate WinXP
installation CDs are already bootable.

After having backed up or otherwise safe-guarded/preserved any
important data files, simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll
be offered the opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as
part of the installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order
of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

In news:OFwNEZfmFHA.4056@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl,
Mike Mueller <I_have_one@somewhere.else> hunted and pecked:
> Wouldn't 2003 Server be the latest in the NT line, as it is
> 6.0 as opposed to XPs 5.1?
>
> "Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
> news:uyRxZGfmFHA.3448@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>> Steven Sinclair wrote:
>>> Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting from a floppy when
>>> starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?
>>>
>>> Thanx.
>>
>>
>> No, there's no way to reboot a WinXP PC into Real Mode DOS unless
>> you've set up a dual-boot system. The WinNT family of 32-bit graphical
>> operating systems, of which WinXP is the latest generation, has never
>> used, included, or "ridden upon" MS-DOS.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Bruce Chambers
>>
>> Help us help you:
>> http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>>
>> You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
>> both at once. - RAH

Guest

Guest

"Steven Sinclair" <StevenSinclair@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:1D556799-3C0E-4AC6-BA4A-BCF30383CD5E@microsoft.com...
> Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting from a floppy when
> starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?
>
> Thanx

There is no DOS but there is Safe Mode, Command Prompt Only.

Yes, it's possible to start a system with a floppy boot disk. However, on
most systems, it's entirely pointless - because DOS cannot deal with NTFS
formatted disks. Most XP systems with hard disks over 40 gig are formatted
NTFS. IIRC, the XP format utility can't format larger disks FATxx, only
NTFS. To format larger disks as FATxx, you need a win9x or 3rd party
format utility.

If you boot from a DOS or Win9x boot diskette, an NTFS hard disk will not be
accessible.

If you absolutely need to run DOS on an XP system, you often need to wipe
the system, create multiple paritions with the base partition FAT32, install
DOS (or win9x) and then install XP. There are various boot managers that
can help with this.

HTH
-pk

G

Guest

Guest

> "Steven Sinclair" <StevenSinclair@discussions.microsoft.com>
> wrote in
> message
> news:1D556799-3C0E-4AC6-BA4A-BCF30383CD5E@microsoft.com...
>> Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting from a
>> floppy
>> when starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?
>>
>> Thanx
>
> There is no DOS but there is Safe Mode, Command Prompt Only.
>
> Yes, it's possible to start a system with a floppy boot disk.
> However, on most systems, it's entirely pointless - because DOS
> cannot deal with NTFS formatted disks.

What you say is mostly true. However, it should be noted that
there is third-party software that can be run from a DOS boot
diskette which adds NTFS support. NTFSDOS is the best-known such
program, but there may be others.

Guest

Guest

>Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting from a floppy when
>starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?

Yes, if you were to instrall a DOS or Win9x DOS mode as a "dual boot"
option - given that XP is NT, and NT contains no DOS or DOS mode.

However, this is not possible if the file system on the boot volume C:
is not one that the DOS mode can read. No DOS or DOS mode can boot
off, run on, or natively read/write NTFS; onlt Win95 SR2 and later can
manage FAT32. Also, no DOS or DOS mode can "see" Long File Names
natively, and whereas a Win9x DOS mode will halt the system to
protrect LFNs, MS-DOS will just go right ahead and mess them up.

Note also that various verisons of DOS and DOS mode may have limits on
maximum hard drive capacity. The Win9x DOS modes are OK up to 137G

Retro-fitting a DOS or DOS mode to an existing NT installation may or
may not be possible, given the above caveats, but can lose your access
to NT bootability if you are not very careful indeed. That's because
the process of installing the DOS system files and bootability via the
Sys command also overwrites the partition boot loader.

Being able to natively dual-boot a DOS mode vs. NT relies on the
partition boot code loading the NT's \NTLDR, which then processes
\Boot.ini to offer you the choice of OS. To load the DOS mode, an
appropriate partition boot sector image has to be found as a file, and
by "appropriate" I mean both the OS-appropriate code, and the
appropriate hard drive volume geometry settings unique to your PC.

So while Sys will get your DOS mode booting OK, it also bypasses
\NTLDR to load the DOS mode directly. That means no more NT, until
you fix the situation, either manually, or via (say) Recovery Console.

Guest

Guest

"cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)" <cquirkenews@nospam.mvps.org> wrote in
message news:vn2cf1dvtsg7qr3il5atr0210jsut5su9s@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 5 Aug 2005 09:33:21 -0700, Steven Sinclair
>
>>Is there any way to boot to dos ONLY without booting from a floppy when
>>starting up a workstation installed with WinXP?
>
> Yes, if you were to instrall a DOS or Win9x DOS mode as a "dual boot"
> option - given that XP is NT, and NT contains no DOS or DOS mode.
>
> However, this is not possible if the file system on the boot volume C:
> is not one that the DOS mode can read. No DOS or DOS mode can boot
> off, run on, or natively read/write NTFS; onlt Win95 SR2 and later can
> manage FAT32. Also, no DOS or DOS mode can "see" Long File Names
> natively, and whereas a Win9x DOS mode will halt the system to
> protrect LFNs, MS-DOS will just go right ahead and mess them up.
>
Wouldn't "onlt Win95 SR2 and later can manage FAT32." be clearer written as
"only Dos from Win95 SR2 and later can manage FAT32."?